January 2019 NPD Sales Results

2018 was a beast of a year for video games. Going into 2019 we knew it would be tough for the market to beat out the high sales numbers of 2018. January 2019 has proven us right because the month registered $893 million in sales for the U.S., which is down 19% from 2018’s January. The biggest decline came in the hardware sales department, with $199 million sold, down 28% from $278 million the prior year. Software came in at $427 million (down 18%) and accessories made up $267 million (down 12%). One thing to note is that January 2019 was made up of 4 weeks of tracking, whereas January 2018 captured 5 weeks. Because of this, it’s hard to completely compare apples to apples.

The good news for Nintendo is that the Switch sold extremely well in January. It was the best selling console on the market in both dollar and unit sales. In fact, it was the only system to sell more this January than last January. According to industry insiders on ResetEra, the Switch sold 284,000 (up 29%), the PS4 195,000 (down 4%) and the Xbox One 101,000 (down 47%). These numbers are not confirmed by NPD, but seem in line with what they’re reporting. Thanks in part to the number of Switch systems being sold, the Pro Controller remains the best selling accessory once again with dollar sales increasing 40% over last year.

January 2019 Top 20

Kingdom Hearts III

Resident Evil 2 2019

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe*

Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII^

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*

Red Dead Redemption II

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

NBA 2K19

Mario Kart 8*

Grand Theft Auto V

Madden NFL 19^

Tales Of Vesperia

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*

Battlefield V^

Super Mario Party*

Minecraft#

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Marvel’s Spider-Man

FIFA 19^

Super Mario Odyssey*

* Digital sales not included ^ PC digital sales not included # Minecraft sales include all physical & digital on PlayStation and Xbox platforms

Top 10 Xbox One titles (January 2019)

Resident Evil 2

Kingdom Hearts III

Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII

Red Dead Redemption II

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

Sea Of Thieves

NBA 2K19

Battlefield V

Madden NFL 19

Grand Theft Auto V

Top 10 PS4 titles (January 2019)

Kingdom Hearts III

Resident Evil 2

Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII

Red Dead Redemption II

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

NBA 2K19

Marvel’s Spider-Man

Grand Theft Auto V

Madden NFL 19

Battlefield V

Top 10 Switch titles (January 2019)

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Mario Kart 8

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Super Mario Party

Super Mario Odyssey

Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu

Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee

Splatoon 2

Tales of Vesperia

ResetEra also breaks down software milestones:

Kingdom Hearts III was the best-selling game of January 2019. Total launch month dollar sales of Kingdom Hearts III were 2.5x that of the previous franchise best, Kingdom Hearts II, which debuted on the PlayStation 2 in the March 2006 tracking period. This is the second month in history that a Kingdom Hearts game has topped the best-sellers chart; Kingdom Hearts II was the best-selling game of April 2006.

Resident Evil 2 ranked second on January’s best-sellers chart, driving more than 2.8x higher dollar sales than the launch month of the original Resident Evil 2, which was released in the January 1998 tracking period on PlayStation. Resident Evil 2 was January’s best-selling game on the Xbox One platform.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe entered the January charts as the third best-selling game of the month. Launch month dollar sales of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe were more than 30 percent higher than that of New Super Mario Bros. U, which launched on the Wii U in November 2012.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown set a new franchise record as launch month dollar sales totaled more than 80 percent higher than October 2007’s Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation

Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.

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Craig Majaski

Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He's currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.